The past is both our best friend and our worst enemy. It can lift us up sometimes, but more often than not… it knocks us down. There are times in our lives that we would love to relive, and times that we just want to erase completely. Not a single person on Earth can say that they are proud of everything that they have done, nor can they say that there isn’t anything they would change.

That being said, as one year has ended and a new one begins, I encourage all of you to separate the great memories you have from the negative ones. Remind yourself that you are a new person than you used to be, that you can’t change who you once were.

Smile, not because you’ve made mistakes but because you have overcome them. Laugh, because you made it to a point in your life that you have been able to find joy. Reminisce, because the past holds memories of your loved ones, because you will never have those years back. Love, because you never know how long you’re going to have with the people in your life.

There will be times throughout our lives that we don’t want to remember, and there will be times that we won’t ever want to forget. These things are a given, but we can’t continue to dwell on the past that we can’t change. We can’t continue to hurt ourselves with the past, instead, we need to leave the negative memories behind.

There’s a time in life that we all have to realize that there isn’t anything we can do about things that have happened in the past, there isn’t anything that worrying can change, or anything that we can change at all. We have to move forward, we have to focus on the future, and we have to leave the negative things past exactly where it belongs… in the past.

The past is both a wonderful and an awful thing, depending on how you look at it.

Look at it positively, be happy, and make 2016 the best year yet.

Oh, and don’t look backwards — you’re not going that way.